the weekly musings of an over-educated young woman on writing, reading, and other miscellany

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

A Case of the Not Enoughs

I’m constantly worried I’m not working hard enough on my writing. That I’m not writing enough. That I haven’t had enough life experience to write anything worthwhile. I’m already pretty sure I haven’t read widely enough even though it seems I'm always reading when I'm not writing. And I suspect I’m not revising enough, even though I’m not sure how I should approach that process differently.

It is no longer enough to land an agent. While agents are still a writer’s number one advocate in the publishing world, the writer still has the ultimate responsibility for selling, positioning, and managing their work. Now, this is nothing new. With so many aspiring writers out there, armed with record levels of literary, the market will favor those writers who can seemingly do it all.

Am I one of them? I don’t know yet as I’m still struggling with this notion: It is no longer enough to write a book.

I’ve written a book (and completed a number of solid drafts for other projects). One that I’m proud of. But is that enough in today’s marketplace? NO. I need to ensure both my idea and story execution are marketable. Competitive. The best I can make it and then some.

This means it is not enough to write for yourself. You must look past your own narrow view of the world. You must know your audience (Found in Translation by Michael Cunningham provides a fascinating take on how to envision the audience for your work). Ultimately you must have a built-in market if your book will win the struggle to stay relevant in our evolving digital culture.

When making the leap from writing for myself to writing for publication, aspects of my work that didn’t bother me before were thrown into sharp relief. I had to ask myself if my work was still good enough for a wider audience. And I didn't like the answer.

It’s hard enough to write a book from start to finish. I don’t mean you have to write in a linear fashion, but that you actually complete the project (tinkering aside). When you hit that point, it can be a tremendous relief. After all, how many other people have great book ideas but get stymied by the execution? But then the real hard work looms ahead of you. Revision. After too many passes to count, you have a polished book, sure, but is it one people want to read? One you can market to publishing houses? One that people will plunk down money for?

Is it that good?

This is where I stumble every time. I just don’t know. I think my work is good. My few readers think so too. But is it good enough? Have I done enough? And if I haven’t, how do I take my work to the next level?

Am I overstating things here a bit? Probably. Am I so discouraged that I will stop linking words, creating dizzying chains of sentences that when fused together make for some awesome storytelling? Hell no. I started writing because I loved it. I won’t stop now. But I still think I haven’t done enough to get things right. I haven’t learned enough. But as always, I’m willing to try.

What do you need? The ability to write really, really, really well. And a great query, a great first page, and The Jeff Herman Guide. Or another method of finding agents who are likely to be a good fit.

5 comments:

I think every writer can identify with this post. And it's good to ask these questions too, because it is really, really hard to succeed and the best, kindest thing one can do is really understand if they are up to the fight.

I'm wondering if you have a critique group (or did I miss this in your post)? I know most writers do, or they have several for different stages of their work. Other eyes can offer the most valuable feedback.

If you want it bad enough it will happen. But it means fighting through the doubt, honestly assessing weaknesses and then doing everything one can to turn them into strengths.

Angela, thanks for the comment! Yes I'm in two writing groups. One that's prompt-based, the other critique-focused -- however we're going through some growing pains right now and I'm not sure if we're going to be changing things up or not in the wake of losing some members. Sigh. It's been surprisingly stressful, but like all things regarding writing (as I've come to find out), just got to keep your head down and keep plugging away :)

Rachael, thanks for stopping by. Definitely not discouraged, just trying to figure out my next steps!

MotherofReinvention, glad you like the blog. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy! Glad to know I'm not the only one struggling with how to evaluate their work properly...

I really recognise these feeling! I tell myself, that if I thought I'd done enough I wouldn't continue, so it becomes a sort of (painful/restless?!) motivation. Please keep writing. I find your posts valuable!